NASA Ames Leads Robotic Lunar Exploration Program

John Bluck
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Phone: 650/604-5026 or 604-9000
E-mail:


November 14, 2005

RELEASE: 05_62AR


NASA Ames Leads Robotic Lunar Exploration Program

Today, on the 36th anniversary of Apollo 12, the second manned lunar
landing, NASA announced that it has assigned management of its Robotic Lunar
Exploration Program to NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon
Valley.

Returning astronauts to the moon will start with robotic missions between
2008 and 2011 to study, map and learn about the lunar surface. These early
missions will help determine lunar landing sites and whether resources, such
as oxygen, hydrogen and metals, are available for use in NASA's long-term
lunar exploration objectives. The assignment marks a rebirth of robotic
space flight work at NASA Ames, which has a history of spearheading unmanned
space launches.

"The Robotic Lunar Exploration Program is a critical element of NASA's
Vision for Space Exploration," said Exploration Systems Mission Directorate
Associate Administrator Dr. Scott Horowitz. "Data collected will help
determine where we go, and what we find during our first human missions to
the lunar surface."

"Ames is delighted to be the home of the new Robotic Lunar Exploration
Program," said G. Scott Hubbard, Ames' director. "Our center has a 40-year
history of excellent space flight programs and project management: the
Pioneer 6-13 series, the Galileo Probe and Lunar Prospector, as well as a
lunar magnetic field instrument for four Apollo missions starting with
Apollo 12 in 1969. We will apply all this experience to make RLEP
successful," Hubbard noted.

Launched on Jan. 6, 1998, from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., Lunar
Prospector reached the moon in four days. The mission was the last NASA
voyage to our nearest neighbor in space.

The spacecraft orbited the moon and gathered data that resulted in evidence
that water ice exists in shadowed craters near the lunar south and north
poles, the first precise gravity map of the entire lunar surface,
confirmation of the presence of local magnetic fields that create the two
smallest magnetospheres in the solar system and the first global maps of the
moon's elemental composition.

Returning robots, and then astronauts, to the moon provides opportunities to
develop and mature technologies needed for long-term survival on other
worlds, according to scientists.

"An exploration science program with a sustained human presence on the moon
gives us the opportunity to conduct fundamental science in lunar geology,
history of the solar system, physics and the biological response to partial
(Earth) gravity," said Christopher McKay, lunar exploration program
scientist at Ames.

"Establishing research stations on the moon will give us the experience and
capabilities to extend to Mars and beyond," robotics deputy program manager
Butler Hine of Ames noted.

For high-resolution images of the moon and historic information, please
visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/new...moon/moon.html



http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/


http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunarprosp.html


http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/head...t31jul99_1.htm

Apollo 12 video footage, marking the 36th anniversary of the second manned
lunar landing, will be available on NASA TV's Video File (via the NASA TV
Media Channel) beginning at noon PST (3 p.m. EST), Monday, Nov. 14, and will
continue through Friday, Nov. 18. Please see an on-line schedule at:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasat..._Schedule.html

NASA TV's public, education and media channels are available on an MPEG-2
digital C-band signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west
longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska and
Hawaii, they are on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at
4060 MHz, horizontal polarization. A Digital Video Broadcast-compliant
integrated receiver decoder is required for reception. For digital downlink
information for each NASA TV channel and access to NASA TV's public channel
on the Web, please visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov


http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/



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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info